In the Philippines, e-commerce is king. As a matter of fact, Statista, a German research organization, recorded a staggering P44 trillion growth in PH e-commerce market revenue in 2018, which is still projected to rise following its stellar historical performance. Needless to say that e-commerce is one of the most profitable ventures across all business platforms.
So for many entrepreneurs of this generation, establishing a PH-based e-commerce website is the clearest path to success. While the perceived difficulty in exploring the online space may intimidate a lot of startups, building an e-commerce website is rather an easy process.
These are the steps to creating and launching the perfect website for your online business.
Make your business legit
Before you dive into the specifics, make sure everything is official. If you already have a registered, fully-operational business, you can skip to the next step. But for budding entrepreneurs who are starting from scratch, the paperwork must always come first. This goes with registering your business with the DTI, SEC, BIR, and other local government offices, and securing all the necessary documents, permits, licenses and certifications.. Once that’s done, you can start piecing together your website and its important elements.
Buy a domain name
There’s nothing more crucial than creating your PH-based e-commerce website’s online identity. Whether it’s mybusiness.com or awesomestuff.ph, getting your domain name to identify your brand sets everything in place. You can purchase a domain name from the Philippines’ official domain registry, dotPH, or from GoDaddy, Bluehost, HostGator and other popular domain registrars.
Hire a web developer
Unless you have sufficient knowledge to create a website yourself, finding someone that can do it is a great option. Building a good website can be tricky, but that’s what website developers are for! Many web developer firms in the Philippines offer website creation and maintenance services, or you can simply hire a freelance web developer at Rakuboss.ph to do it. You won’t have to worry about all the tech stuff when you have a professional in charge of everything.
Find a hosting platform
You can leave this part to your web developer if you have one, but if you wish to get a bit more hands-on in the creation of your PH-based e-commerce website, finding an effective web hosting e-commerce platform is the next step. It’s how you can start building the structure of your website. Sites like Shopify, Shopline, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce offer an easy-to-use e-commerce platform to incorporate helpful plugins, site elements, and payment structures to get your website going. Most developers are familiar with these tools anyway, so building your site using these recommended platforms won’t be too much of a task.
Optimize your site.
Many websites today are beautifully-designed, but fail to convert sales because of the lack of an effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. SEO is all about doing the technical and creative steps to make sure your website ranks higher in search engine results. There are many SEO techniques that site owners use to fully optimize their website. From finding popular keywords to building links, investing in a good SEO strategy is the key to enhancing your site performance.
Populate it with blogs
The best way to get traffic into your website is by infusing it with great content. Publishing engaging texts for people who usually want to learn more about a product before buying it is an effective means to close a sale online. This can be done in the form of blogs. And note that blogging and SEO come hand-in-hand, since the keywords that people search for online often lead to blog posts and articles. So before you start writing and generating content, make sure they are SEO-ready.
Learn analytics
Analytics is a useful instrument in tracking your users’ activity. You can use those reports to decide whether to retain or modify your online strategy. Automated insights can speak more than just numbers. Maximize them. You can use tools like Magento or Branch.io to see how well you’re reaching your target market, be it app installs, website clicks, or checkouts. Data works to your advantage when you know how to approach it.
Starting an online business is a gamble. Because e-commerce in the Philippines has become so massive, making your mark can be difficult. That is why knowing how to properly create a powerful and optimized e-commerce website, or hiring a good web developer to do the job smoothly, is your best bet.
